A modern telecommunications cell site relies on a distributed architecture, where a base-station transceiver subsystem (BTS), for example, is divided into two main elements. The first is a baseband unit (BBU) that typically resides at the base or bottom of a cell tower. The second is a remote radio head (RRH) that performs radio frequency (RF) functions near antennas near the top of a cell tower. Because of this distributed architecture, RF access is generally only available at the top of the cell tower. Given the height of such a tower, detecting and measuring interference can be quite cumbersome, costly, and even dangerous.
Recent technological developments have been made to provide communications between the BBU and the RRH. For instance, the BBU and the RRH may communicate via a common public radio interface (CPRI). In particular, RF over CPRI (RFoCPRI™) technology has enabled effective RF analysis from the base of the tower, minimizing dangerous tower climbs and associated costs and inefficiencies. A technical problem, however, is that a test instrument that analyzes a CPRI signal, for example, may not typically report RF power, or if it does, it may not be accurately measured or reported. RF power measurements are often measured using other test devices, and these test devices may not be entirely reliable as well. As a result, a technique that measures RF power using CPRI spectrum analysis may be helpful to increase network testing efficiencies and overcome shortcomings of conventional technologies.